Peace

When he finally let himself love, it could only have been for Serla. For, he was a petulant and generally inverted person, who took the critiques of women as challenges, and was quick to condition untenable ultimatums for his sovereignty. He was, in his blustering way, a small, petty man, though he had a wide knowledgeability of facts and a jewel of original genius, or some clandestine ingenuity that peered from his narrowing eyes, which helped gain him the respect of both those who could stomach him, and those who could not. By grand contrast to all, Serla was the first person interested in him who wholeheartedly and unabashedly did not take him seriously, nor cared when he made a fuss. On the contrary, her challenges were unabashedly tangible. Like the truth, she was utterly unaffected by his pride.

She was fine now, but it was a long road, like most things. The early days of that year were spent growing a joy she thought she’d lost, her perception of the world expanding; inner strength and outer creation fueling each other. Yet still, she experienced a continual revelation of liminality, poising to change, ready to reorder upon an axis of self that was only beginning to be accessed. It was both unexpected and unsurprising, had she not already wrestled the world? Now she knew unequivocally that she would stake her claim and that her skill in living, and her accomplishments that waystoned the growth of that skill, would increase. But she had learned that, for her, the great vision would thrive if only she was willing to go slowly, slowly, and with much work. And thus, in that time, waiting to change, to love this man Jib, with his blind arrogance and withdrawn superiority, with his personal brilliance and potent potential, was to love herself. For the both of them were much work then. Striking and interesting, but still work. Though isn’t it always work? they would both say to themselves, and hope it was true.

In the competitive maelstrom that was their love, personal growth and emotional expression were syntaxed into a language of fond war, culminating in a continual creative frustration that gyred like reptile sex. To Jib, life became a final heaven, this wild and powerful woman who would challenge him in a way he considered equal. To Serla, life continued to be an affirmation of who she had already become. Yet, inevitably, like a glacier, both slow and fast as time, she became aware that a new part of her had grown again, evolved from the core, that Jib could not affirm, powerful, kind, healthy. His snide narcissism, his pestering aggravations, they became clearer as her own true self did. Conversely, Jib settled into himself, laconic and confrontational, the King of absolutely nothing. When she got word of the job offer in Trintas, it was like a light piercing her heart, reawakening her. That was all it took. She bought a flight that night and left at dawn.

City of games, city of night, city of the reveling mass; Trintas, its gold spires rising on broad cliffs over a winesmooth river. The third largest port in the world, the heart of trade and commerce of the country. Serla's work existed at the intersection of logistics and oversight as the assistant to a powerful operator. Things moved quickly. The day of her arrival her employer lost his voice to illness, never to regain it again, thus needing to communicate through her solely. After her insight and wit saved him a blunder and opened an opportunity, he took it as a sign of her trustworthiness. When a few days later the position below his was suddenly vacated, he promoted her, making her the subtle ruler of his station. She barely had time to think about Jib, and when his first letter came, she asked for all further one's to be returned to sender. To her disgust, and yet completely unsurprisingly, it was a long, logical diatribe about his innocence and her insensitivity. Some part of her still loved him, sure, and now she was ready to let it fly. On the tenth day since her arrival she awoke in her tower apartment and overlooked the city. The gamesplayers were just ending their nocturnal delight, but her game was just beginning. Forever, Serla was one who did a great deal of thinking about the world, and in that time began to see an old set of concepts she’d nurtured in the course of her life superimposed on the world, a schemata of how things could be if people were incentivized to work together. Serla considered that she was in a better place to truly think about, and work on, those designs now more than ever. Funny, Jib had been enthusiastic about that set of concepts. She was shaken from her reverie by a hard knock on the door. Behind it, she found a beautiful man representing a small new political party. He explained how he hoped to get some proposals in front of her that her predecessor wouldn't entertain. His name was Yonz.

There was a special pain to being revered for something you couldn't control, Yonz had discovered. For, he'd spent his life the embodiment of others' ideals. It was a charade of youth. And if that's how you’d lived, had you really lived? The concept tore at him, had now for a long long time. When he announced he would be stepping down from ownership of the gameshouse, everyone scoffed, particularly his wife. In the dark of night, alone below the million stars he saw what he had to do. All of it had to be forsaken. He emerged a pauper, heartbroken, alone, scared and unsure of himself for the first time in his life. Thus, he was free. But he did not leave Trintas, his home, instead he left the time he occupied, the night and the flash of the games and frivolities. He entered the world of daylight, of modesty, of quietude, and of doing good. For Yonz was ever one who looked outwards to quench the yearning that the masters say only lays within. But what is one to do? Lost and not blessed with purpose. One is to work, for the good of all if one can manage it, and that is what Yonz did. He rallied around a group of thinkers he was fascinated by, whose thoughts helped rouse him from slumber, and began to formalize their work into propositions of law. Yet he found himself stymied when he needed the signoff of a certain beaurocrat. Imagine his surprise when the man was replaced by a young upstart. Imagine his surprise further when he went to speak to her. Yonz was done from the moment he looked in her eyes, from the moment they began to talk life and business, a slave once more to something he couldn't control. But was it so bad? After all, he'd think, love is a worthy master.

When Jib finally decided to make his grand move, he felt that he'd waited an appropriate amount of time. He scoffed, raged, and brooded, worked hard at both his job and his construction. Not a construction of the physical, but instead the thorough and correct analysis of Serla and his relationship. Beyond this, he'd mapped how he would get her back, and then her whole life, especially considering her prestigious station. They always discussed his entry into politics, to become a representative for their city. Now he would put that to task, but in a new configuration. He came to Trintas feeling like a warrior going to battle, excited for his conquest, unaware of Serla’s new love. Yet, sometimes at the precipice of destruction does the universe throw some trite assistance to give a person footing, even if scant, because sometimes a single foothold is all a person needs. Thus, Jib was grateful to have his heartbreak on display through the window of her office, high in the towers of state overlooking the raucous city. Not grateful for any other reason than the data. For, that terrible truth, to catch a glimpse of her in the arms of a dashing good old Cirilanian boy, the kind the girls can’t get enough of, the sort that he, no that they hated, that truth was such a thorn, a spike, an intrusion on all that was right that it demanded resistance, war! He would subvert, destroy, replace. Jib burst into the office and announced himself as her next appointment. When she asked what he was doing, he said he was there to start the political campaign. When she called him a fool for thinking she would support his aspirations, he corrected her.

“Not my campaign… yours.”

Serla had some choices to make. Despite all reason Jib was talking sense. Despite all chance he was being kind. He came to the table with a well crafted apology, a forbearance of the existence of Yonz, and a plan to turn Serla into a young politician of intrigue, taking some of her work syncretic work on public feedback systems and solidifying it into a sensible bedrock of policy, one that the King might even favor if it was handled properly. There was a headwind gaining at her back, a storm riding in her wake, and she was elevated into circles of power quickly due to her acumen. Was she not a perfect choice for the council seat up at the coming of the cold half, when blue snow falls through the night? Should not her power spread on the land too, bringing that goodness of her design to all? Yonz was now her lover, her partner, and their life was settling into a pleasant mundanity. He was rightfully suspicious of Jib, but at her request the two men kept distance and stayed amiable. A few stretch passed of listening to Jib's proposals and even Yonz thought the campaign made sense. Yet, as the world organized around her, forcing her towards this path, she began to feel more and more removed from it, and did see instead now often that grand design, one that extended from the same concepts Jib had formed her political platform upon, the one that she’d worked on her whole life, drawing knowledge and research from the governments and religions of the world. A feedback system, but not for the King, not for the council; one for the people. She called it The Choice, and once it was named there was no going back. She would not run for office. In the morning Yonz made his big move, then Serla and Jib met at the Bridge of Fortune, a gold plated archway spanning the fjord, high above the lower parts of the city, one of the great works of architecture on the planet Niadwe. There she told him of her intention to pull back from politics to work on her concept… and to marry Yonz.

Jib did not take it well.

It was the best day of Yonz’s life. How lucky could a man be? He’d found the love of his soul, worked hard in her service and alongside her, even risen above petty squabbles with her recent lover, and then that morning, he’d told her of his intention, and she’d reciprocated with utter joy. It all happened quick, sure, but why worry? Yonz life was transformed, his person now complete, and Serla was everything a partner could be. She cared for them, she rose them up, she was kind and understanding, helping Yonz see his faults, helping the world see its faults as well. He could build something true with her. And now, to his secret joy, she was breaking off the work arrangement with Jib. Yonz spied on them casually from the balcony at an end of the bridge. He watched the woman he loved give the bad news… and then the fight broke out. Suddenly Jib was close to her, yelling. Yonz sprinted, heart pounding, and yet when he found them, both did recoil as if guilty. Jib exclaimed that Yonz led the woman to accepting small dreams, had manipulated her to choose fear rather than life. She denounced them both. Yonz challenged Jib to a duel right there, and before Serla could protest further the men began the old dance of blood and bluster. Yet, Yonz was trained in youth, trained like the boys who don’t have to work are trained, trained in frivolities of the body like swordplay, whereas the person who is born with their feet in the dirt must strive, no time for sport, and learns to box. Jib had worn a sword just for show. Thus was Jib beaten down and humiliated, limping back unable to muster a retort, merely grunting in pain where Yonz blade dug deep into his leg. Yonz dropped to his knees and apologized to Serla for his rage. But there was no anger in her eyes. Instead, she told him it was time to get to work, so they went to her tower and right to it. How lucky could a man be? It was the best day of Yonz’s life.

For five years Serla and Yonz loved and lived while Serla did the good work. The result was a tome, The Choice of All, the explanation of a method for collecting public opinion and integrating it directly into lawmaking decisions. Most importantly, governors would be bound to the choices of their constituents. In its first draft, it subverted the King as well, but Yonz compelled her to edit that out. The King became a seat with full veto power and arbitration over defense. In the years of work that led up to its finalization, Yonz and Serla were very happy, but Serla became more removed as time drove on, hardening as she dove into her complex work. She apologized to him for how she was becoming, solely obsessed with her goal, but made it clear that her goal came first, before anything. Yonz found it inspiring, attractive, and he was a simple man anyway, one she could love without encumbrance, touching down for a few moments of romance here and there and then pulling him into their critical collaboration. Soon she began to share her ideas publicly in purely intellectual contexts, always wary of attracting too much attention. At first Yonz thought it was because she was scared. Yet, he soon learned that she wasn’t scared, just cautious about sharing too much of an imperfect theory. Those days they lived outside of Trintas, up against the river. She often went to the side of the water to write. Yet, one morning Yonz noticed her staring off into the horizon, the unending gaze lasting an entire day. When he asked what she was meditating upon, she told him she could not continue to put up a charade.

“My system will only be true if the station of King is destroyed.”

When Serla fired Jib his life imploded. He left Trintas in a furor, hideous injuries across his leg mocking him, incensed that he not only wasted time, but that he believed things were turning around. He and Serla were even spending extra time together outside of work. Then he became obsessed with the actual focus of his campaign, regardless of the relationship, and saw it as his purpose. Thus, for a second time was his love ripped from his life, yet this time it went with his reason for living at all. The next five years held pain and striving with little to show. He tried to replicate his plans with his own campaign only to fail, then with another candidate, and was left unfavored and unfavorable to his friends and contacts. His season never came and yet it was gone. Through all the hardship an anger kept him bitter, at Serla, at Yonz who had robbed him of her… who had robbed the world of her actually if he thought about it. By indulging her aims towards being a radical instead of a brave politician, Jib thought Yonz kept a force of good from being a force of great. His anger grew as his own situation became more dire, and he lived in a feverish fantasy of revenge.

The way Jib found out about Serla’s death was a courier with a letter. Her crash only happened a few days prior, but the letter was a couple years old, when Serla prepared her last rights. In it, she told Jib that he was to give her eulogy.

It was the worst day of Yonz’s life… everyday now. The crash, the obvious murder that no one would acknowledge, that would never be solved, that the King ordered silently, like Yonz knew he would, like he’d said he would, happened right on the eve of her work’s great unveiling, a chance to talk on the stage at the commons championship that year. Yonz’s body was destroyed in the crash, leg amputated at the thigh, bones broken all through him. He was confined to a chair in a constant agony of the flesh, staring within at the endless void where his life had been, where Serla had been. The one who was so kind, kinder than the Islanders say the World Mother is. Now that she was gone all goodness was gone from life. And as a final horror, a final frustration, now the man who tried to take her from him was to speak at her funeral, by her order! It gnawed at him, destroyed him, embittered him in the lead up to the ceremony of her death. But when the old suitor arrived, disheveled and disturbed, Yonz elated at Jib’s state, feeling superior then for a moment. Yet, when the man stood over him, he realized that the grounds he had bested him on in the past were now unavailable. The long agonizing yaw of his life extravasated wide, darkening the universe. It was the worst day of Yonz's life... everyday now. Curse this world, for it is doomed, he said within as the man took the stage.

In those moments Yonz forgot his wife’s dying words.

“Serla was the most intensely inspiring person I met in my entire life…” Jib began. No words had ever felt more true, and by the end of his speech Yonz was in tears. For, his old enemy told a tale of the woman that Yonz loved, that Yonz had thought of as the perfect partner, and a thinker whose work could save the world. But Jib’s tale did not use those concepts, did not have that lexicon. Where Yonz saw the mother, Jib saw the captain. Everything he said was utterly true, and yet was tangential to the ways that Yonz had perceived his partner. The Serla he spoke of existed for no one, despite the comment coming from the man who’d tried to manipulate her years before. Jib saw her potential, believed in it, Yonz realized, more than even he. It wasn't a ploy, Jib truly believed Serla could have been an unparalleled force of good for the world, some paragon of goodness to lead the people. Maybe that’s why the king really murdered her, Yonz realized. Suddenly he saw Jib in a new light. Sure, Jib was selfish, but they both were. They were both selfish, self-consumed men, fools who knew it. And thus he saw the spark of something else there too, the essence of a person he could befriend. On a whim he put Jib up in his house, seeing the bitter snake was indigent. They argued about politics and life for most of the night before finally getting to the subject of the woman they both loved. It was then, in their shared description, that a faint outline of the reality of the person emerged. For, people are their own, many things to many, yet a secret to all but themselves. What the two men did know was that Serla was one who strived to see through to the truth, a person who took the eras of her life seriously, who followed that which the soul yearns for, creating work that matched her own highest ideals. Then she gave that work to the community in a way they that could make use of. There is no greater achievement. In the coming stretch Yonz and Jib developed a plan to release The Choice of All, though both men knew it would mean their death. They accomplished their goal and the work was sent to the heads of three main opposition political groups, alongside a public admonition of the King for an obvious assassination of a former stateswoman and renowned idealogue. There was no guarantee the work would have an impact, but they had done their duty. The men departed on a pointless escape, the hunched and decrepit Jib pushing the broken Yonz down the long road, up into mountains until the chair broke on the ice and jagged rock.

At the peak of a monolithic crag, the weary Jib knelt down so Yonz could crawl off his back. Then he helped his friend sit up near the edge, overlooking the wide wild nightland. Lights in the valley told them the pursuers weren’t too far off. This suicide sojourn brought the two men to a friendship of the highest truth. There at the end, Jib asked Yonz a question long in his heart.

“What were Serla’s last words?”

Yonz took a long time to answer, huddling against the cold. The men looked into each other's eyes beneath the million stars. “The explosion destroyed the crystal powering the Liftship… so we had some time before we hit the ground. I just cursed over and over, apologizing. I don’t know why. But she grabbed my arm, digging her fingers into it, I can feel them now more than the cold. As we fell she told me she loved me, and then, Jib, she began to shout. I’ve not thought of these words for a long time, their goodness contrasts too much with all that came later. World! She shouted. May the people of these lands overcome the tyranny of ages, the tyranny of tyranny itself, may the people of the world learn to care for each other, and to focus on that which benefits all. Then she looked at me, I remember her face so vividly, the last thing I saw before the impact. She looked into my soul and said,” Yonz laughed into the wind, or maybe he cried. “One day humankind will know…"

The wind raged till then, scorching the sound from their ears. But just as he said the final word of his wife's dying soliloquy did the wind cease, and his voice rang out high over the valley, echoing wide like the word of a god.

"Peace."

The men held each other and wept.

Peace

Peace

Edwin Leskin